If you are like some many others today, watching the news in amazement as governments the world over attempt to spend their way out of financial ruin, you are probably thinking, “Why don’t they just do what I do?” Adjust, cut back spending, and find new and innovative ways to make ends meet. Consumers the world over, no matter what their education level may be are realizing that we have been living on borrowed time and borrowed money. When did we become so delusional as to think that the good times would never end?
You can almost apply Sir Isaac Newton’s law of gravity to our current economic condition, globally. Although you cannot manipulate the law of gravity, the way you can manipulate and measure the theoretical intricacies of Macro and Micro Economics, the effects are still the same. Those of us who live within both systems understand the rules exist simply and without really even knowing how or why, we just know they are there.
What goes up must ultimately come back down, period. Understanding the forces at work is for the intellectuals to figure out. For the rest of us, or at least a lot of us, we must re-evaluate our own personal economies and make adjustments accordingly, doing without some things to pay for others and making sacrifices and choices that, let’s face it, are downright difficult.
If you are currently weighing your options and attempting to salvage a credit rating your have worked your entire life to maintain, there are tools available to help you visualize how doing without something else can get you out of credit card debt you may have amassed over the course of time. A credit card repayment calculator is an effective and easy-to-use tool that can help you gain real perspective and insight into how much money you may be needlessly spending each and every month by paying the minimum payment on your charge card(s).
Using a Credit Card Repayment Calculator
Consumers, for far too long, have been desensitized and conditioned to the consideration of the “monthly payment” amount, rather than looking at spending long-term. It’s true no matter what you may have purchased whether it’s a home, a car, furniture, appliances, or a night out on the town, when we only look at the costs on a monthly minimum basis, we deprive ourselves of the very real and costly big picture. For the remainder of this article we will highlight tough choices you can make today that will, in time, decrease your stress and allow you to live life within your means, happily and comfortably.
- Take just one credit card you may be using and paying only the minimum monthly payment on every month.
- Find yourself a credit card repayment calculator and begin to evaluate where you can make small changes in your current monthly spending to accommodate paying $100 extra on that card every single month.
- That may sound like a lot, but you’ll be amazed at how much money you can trim out of your totally spending every month when you truly focus on what you spend and what you can do without.
- To do this effectively, you need to know exactly how much money you spend every month and keep track of it.
- It’s just like going to weight watchers to lose weight, when you first start, you have to keep track of everything that crosses your lips and accurately measure and weigh your food, but with time, you begin to develop a perspective of exactly how much cereal you can pour into your bowl as one serving, or what a three or four ounce portion of protein looks like.
- It’s the same principle with a budget, once you have kept track of it, you will be able to refine and manipulate it just by making small, seemingly insignificant modifications.
- Once you have a good understanding of your monthly finances and expenses, you can make choices about what’s important to you and consider your needs versus your wants.
Now let’s get back to that additional $100 we talked about earlier. Use a credit card repayment calculator to see the difference between what making the minimum monthly payment versus added the additional $100 to that monthly payment will work out to be. The difference will be staggering.
People everyday are literally eliminating thousands and thousands of dollars in interest just by using a credit card repayment calculator as a tool to developing and adhering to their respective repayment plans. You too can do the same thing with your credit card debts. Of course, you must develop discipline and self-control so you don’t continue the same spending patterns and attitudes that enabled you to arrive at this cross-road to begin with. By developing a budget, cutting spending, and substituting other healthy activities for that of immediate self-gratification, you will find your way out from under that debt burden you have carried for too long.
